Human remains might belong in graveyards, but skeletons are showing up in suburban backyards, proving pieces of history might lie just beneath the grass.
A human jawbone was unearthed last week at a Bloomfield Township residence by construction workers, and the Bloomfield Township Police Department later determined the bone required no criminal investigation.
No additional human remains were found and the bone was transported to MSU’s Department of Anthropology to be examined by associate professor of anthropology Todd Fenton.
Fenton determined the bone belonged to a male about 20 years old who has been dead for anywhere between 200 and 1,000 years.
“It’s always an unknown, anytime you find any kind of human remains, especially in a neighborhood, you start to wonder who, what, where, why and what’s going on,” Capt. Steve Cook of the Bloomfield Township Police Department said.
Fenton said examining remains such as the jawbone is not uncommon for the lab.
“I would say that based on our caseload, we’re a very busy laboratory so it’s not uncommon for us to … have human remains brought to us for identification,” he said. “It’s kind of a weekly thing we do.”
Upon receiving a specimen, Fenton follows a series of steps to determine information such as circumstances of death and identification information.
“When the evidence is brought to us, the first question is, ‘Is it bone?’” he said. “The second thing we ask is, ‘Is it human?’”
Oftentimes, animal bones are mistaken for human bones because of the similarities in some animal species, Fenton said.
“We’ve had cases where there will be this ‘human hand’ in the Dumpster and in fact it turns out to be from a bear,” he said.
Anthropologists can spend weeks examining a specimen before all questions are answered, Fenton said.
From the age of the bone to the dentition and eating
patterns, anthropologists said they are excited about each new case and what they might learn.
“Scientifically it’s exciting because you can expand scientific knowledge,” said Robert Hitchcock, an MSU anthropology professor and chair of the department.
“Maybe if it’s really old, that’s exciting in itself.”
Cases are all unique, which makes exploring new finds interesting, Fenton said.
“It’s interesting because each case represents a brand-new challenge,” he said. “Each case has kind of its own personality and each case represents its own individual challenges.”
Not all bones are the same, making some more full of information, Fenton said.
“It really depends on what that one bone is,” he said. “Certainly if you have a cranium, the cranium can provide a lot of information. Some bones aren’t as useful.”
Police were shocked by the unexpected find in the mainly suburban neighborhood.
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“This is the first time in almost 25 years of experience that this thing has happened to me or this department,” Cook said.
